As much as I’m not really a fan of him. I respect this move. A lot of underpaid fighters out here.
8/29 SHO PPV - Jake Paul VS Tyron Woodley (POLL ADDED)
As much as I’m not really a fan of him. I respect this move. A lot of underpaid fighters out here.
Floyd gave him some pointers for about an hour , PBF has not trained TWHe has Floyd training him too
That would be embarrassing.
Last edited:
woodley's mom...she is a live wire lol...im sure theres going to be some fukkery during that fight in the audience
DallasTxRep
Superstar
Woodley definitely gotta knock that white boy out now
I've got my bets done for the weekend on the boxing, the only one I haven't done yet is Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley? Who do people think wins the fight? Obviously considering Tyron Woodley is an MMA fighter there's some unknowns here, who do people think?
KingOFKings
All Star
The beef I have with Showtime is that they have never expended even a quarter of this effort for their regular main events. Even the Tank/Barrios PPV didn’t get this type of push which is sickening.
If they treated every fight like this their ratings would sky rocket.
Ivan Baranchyk ready to prove he’s still ‘a warrior’ in first fight since slugfest with Jose Zepeda
By Lance Pugmire Aug 26, 2021
1
As the wife of a professional boxer, Yuliya Bahdanovich is used to people asking her, “Do you fear the worst?”
One October night last year, sitting home alone in Miami while her husband, the former 140-pound world champion Ivan Baranchyk of Russia, fought Southern California’s Jose Zepeda in the 2020 fight of the year, Bahdanovich endured just that.
Capping the memorable, nationally televised bout that featured eight knockdowns, Zepeda landed a crushing left hand in the fifth round that sent Baranchyk crumbling downward for good, his right leg bent under him.
For several harrowing minutes, Baranchyk was shown lying backward on the canvas, a large blood spot on the side of his head, his eyes closed.
“Being alone made it so much worse,” Bahdanovich said. “I sat there thinking how scary boxing can be, about everything that can happen … it’s hard to even talk about it now. All I wanted was to hear Ivan’s voice on the phone … and I waited so long.”
Emergency personnel in Las Vegas gathered near Baranchyk that night, a doctor advising them to pause immediate treatment inside the ring so he could progress beyond the encouraging signs of breathing on his own, and then opening his eyes.
“I was disappointed, knowing I had lost all control,” said Baranchyk, who faces Montana Love (15-0-1, 7 KOs) on Sunday. “But I was lying there knowing I was fine, understanding everything that was being said to me. I didn’t care about anything else other than I was alive.”
Quickly after that realization, Baranchyk’s thoughts flashed to his wife. As he was being wheeled from the ring toward an ambulance, away from his cell phone in the locker room, he searched his un-clouding mind for the most important detail to him at the moment: his wife’s phone number.
He recalled it and asked his nearby co-promoter Tony Holden to call it.
“Everything’s good. I’m OK,” Baranchyk told Bahdanovich. “I know you’re worried, but I lost my phone, and I’m sorry it took so long. I’ve been worrying that you’re worried.”
The fretting over the resumption of Baranchyk’s career has continued ever since – from his wife, his two promoters, his manager and anyone else who witnessed the brutality he endured in the bout with Zepeda that Baranchyk promoter Lou DiBella calls “the fight of the century.”
Jose Zepeda left victorious after a back-and-forth battle with Ivan Baranchyk. (Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
In the WBC title eliminator, Baranchyk (20-2, 13 KOs) showed early why his nickname is “The Beast” by dropping Zepeda three times by the end of the second round.
“Ivan should’ve won that fight by just slowing down, allowing himself to win on points, but that’s something he was clearly not willing to do,” Baranchyk manager David McWater said. “Ivan’s an animal. He wanted to finish him, and you saw what happened – that crazy roller coaster ride.”
Indeed, former 140-pound title challenger Zepeda (34-2, 26 KOs) answered by dropping Baranchyk in the second, third and fourth rounds.
A thunderous Baranchyk punch sent Zepeda down again in the final minute of the fifth, backing him to the ropes. This was no time to back off, Baranchyk reasoned.
“I didn’t care about anything other than winning. I’m a warrior,” Baranchyk said.
But going for the kill opened him to Zepeda’s vicious punch, and McWater, who was ringside at the 2019 deaths of Patrick Day and Maxim Dadashev, looked up in alarm to see his fighter posed perilously in a position not meant for 27-year-olds.
“Of course, I have concerns about the kid, because I love him,” McWater said. “There’d be nothing worse than a kid that special being injured forever.”
Baranchyk recalls undergoing a battery of tests at the hospital, then sleeping soundly all night, awaking to be told that beyond the cuts above his eyes, there was no brain damage detected, and that he was free to leave the next morning in the company of Holden.
The pair were driven to a local café, and Baranchyk ordered two bowls of ice cream: one chocolate, one vanilla.
“I very, very much like chocolate ice cream,” Baranchyk said.
Enjoying one of life’s simpler pleasures in that moment might have been the cause to prompt Baranchyk to reflect on the events of the past 12 hours.
The importance of health, the joy of living, the love of his wife.
“Ivan is not an emotional person, so he doesn’t think anything special like that,” Bahdanovich said, chuckling, to which Baranchyk confirmed, “I was just eating my ice cream.”
Nevertheless, upon his return home to Miami, there was the emotional scene of Bahdanovich embracing her husband at the airport. She was so thankful that the pair, who first met 10 years ago at a national sports camp in Belarus (she was a wrestler), were now back in each other’s arms.
“I took him for another bowl of ice cream,” she said.
The Nevada Athletic Commission suspended Baranchyk six months because of the seriousness of the knockout. Dedicated to daily conditioning, he returned to sparring in April and then DiBella, Holden and McWater plotted his next move.
“If I told him not to fight anymore, he’d fire me and go to someone else,” McWater said. “He’s so irrepressible, there’s nothing that was going to stop him from fighting.”
Indeed, Baranchyk claimed the IBF 140-pound title in October 2018, stopping his opponent after seven rounds. He then became the youngest participant in the World Boxing Super Series 140-pound tournament, and following some arduous travel to Scotland, lost to now-undisputed champion Josh Taylor by unanimous decision.
Losing the mandatory challenger position to Zepeda hasn’t dampened Baranchyk’s passion to reclaim a belt, but moving forward from that rugged defeat required shrewd planning by the respected boxing minds directing his career.
“I was more attentive than I’ve ever been,” DiBella said. “As fight guys, we know something like that with Zepeda takes a lot out of you. It wasn’t about getting Ivan a confidence builder. He was just in World War III. Any fight that we could get him after that poses a risk. We had to sit there and really analyze the opportunity and the cost-benefit analysis. Ivan fights like Ivan, and that’s just how he is.”
Ivan Baranchyk will compete on the undercard of Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley on Sunday. (Mikey Williams/Top Rank via Getty Images)
An opening emerged last month as he was added to the undercard of Sunday’s Showtime pay-per-view headlined by YouTube star Jake Paul versus former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in Cleveland.
“Montana can beat him. We know that. And there were others who could’ve been easier to beat,” McWater said. “But we felt like Montana can’t hurt him. He’s a slick boxer, not a big puncher.
“Ivan’s at a level where even tune-ups are good fighters. Once you’re a world champion, you don’t get freebies anymore. We couldn’t stamp our feet and say, ‘Give us a bum!’ He’s at too high of a level for that now. He wants to fight the best and he feels he’s perfectly fine.”
McWater has heard expert analysts like ESPN’s former two-division champion Timothy Bradley Jr. express concerns about Baranchyk returning to fight.
“Ivan doesn’t believe that at all, and at some point, you have to honor his beliefs, too,” McWater said. “We’ll see. As long as he gets through this fight in good spirits – Montana Love is a very good fighter – then we feel we can get him back on the map, closer to a world title.”
DiBella said he and McWater ensured Baranchyk underwent visits with some leading neurologists, who examined the post-fight exams from Las Vegas and put him through their own scans and diagnostic scrutiny before clearing him to fight again.
Asked if he can truly alter his instinctive attacking fighting style, Baranchyk said, “I’m still a warrior, but I’ve changed my mentality a little, improving my conditioning, and I hope you will see those technical improvements. I’ve (tended) to my defense. I’ll try not to be crazy during these fights. I want to be smart.”
That triggered his wife to respond, “Smart and crazy at the same time? Ummm … I hope so,” to which Baranchyk replied, “I’ll try, I promise.”
“I’m worrying for sure,” Bahdanovich said. “I’ll need some time to get back to the (lesser anxiety) I felt before the last fight. It’s just hard for me to know Ivan is going back in the ring.”
Baranchyk has fallen to No. 9 in the WBC 140-pound rankings, but the savvy McWater and DiBella assess that delivering a first defeat to Love on this high-profile platform will boost him.
Baranchyk expressed confidence his relentless style will wear down Love and overwhelm the local fighter’s effort to win on points.
Should he prevail, maybe then the handlers would move him toward a fight against someone like former 140-pound champion Regis Prograis. Another scenario could play out if Taylor moves to welterweight after his December mandatory defense against Jack Catterall.
Zepeda-Baranchyk II?
“Boxing is an inherently dangerous business. When you see a fighter viciously knocked out, it makes you wonder about the sport … so what you need to do is due diligence,” DiBella said. “He wasn’t rushed back. And he’s being paid well. The kid still wants to become a champion. He believes he’s in that rarefied air.”
Baranchyk knows it’s on him to calm the nerves of all those who recall the haunting vision of when he was last inside the ring.
“When they see me fight, my hope is they won’t have as many worries about my health,” he said. “I’m appreciative for what my promoters and manager have done. They always check on me. Now, this is my next step back and I can tell you: Everything will be well.”
(Top photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
By Lance Pugmire Aug 26, 2021
As the wife of a professional boxer, Yuliya Bahdanovich is used to people asking her, “Do you fear the worst?”
One October night last year, sitting home alone in Miami while her husband, the former 140-pound world champion Ivan Baranchyk of Russia, fought Southern California’s Jose Zepeda in the 2020 fight of the year, Bahdanovich endured just that.
Capping the memorable, nationally televised bout that featured eight knockdowns, Zepeda landed a crushing left hand in the fifth round that sent Baranchyk crumbling downward for good, his right leg bent under him.
For several harrowing minutes, Baranchyk was shown lying backward on the canvas, a large blood spot on the side of his head, his eyes closed.
“Being alone made it so much worse,” Bahdanovich said. “I sat there thinking how scary boxing can be, about everything that can happen … it’s hard to even talk about it now. All I wanted was to hear Ivan’s voice on the phone … and I waited so long.”
Emergency personnel in Las Vegas gathered near Baranchyk that night, a doctor advising them to pause immediate treatment inside the ring so he could progress beyond the encouraging signs of breathing on his own, and then opening his eyes.
“I was disappointed, knowing I had lost all control,” said Baranchyk, who faces Montana Love (15-0-1, 7 KOs) on Sunday. “But I was lying there knowing I was fine, understanding everything that was being said to me. I didn’t care about anything else other than I was alive.”
Quickly after that realization, Baranchyk’s thoughts flashed to his wife. As he was being wheeled from the ring toward an ambulance, away from his cell phone in the locker room, he searched his un-clouding mind for the most important detail to him at the moment: his wife’s phone number.
He recalled it and asked his nearby co-promoter Tony Holden to call it.
“Everything’s good. I’m OK,” Baranchyk told Bahdanovich. “I know you’re worried, but I lost my phone, and I’m sorry it took so long. I’ve been worrying that you’re worried.”
The fretting over the resumption of Baranchyk’s career has continued ever since – from his wife, his two promoters, his manager and anyone else who witnessed the brutality he endured in the bout with Zepeda that Baranchyk promoter Lou DiBella calls “the fight of the century.”
Jose Zepeda left victorious after a back-and-forth battle with Ivan Baranchyk. (Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
In the WBC title eliminator, Baranchyk (20-2, 13 KOs) showed early why his nickname is “The Beast” by dropping Zepeda three times by the end of the second round.
“Ivan should’ve won that fight by just slowing down, allowing himself to win on points, but that’s something he was clearly not willing to do,” Baranchyk manager David McWater said. “Ivan’s an animal. He wanted to finish him, and you saw what happened – that crazy roller coaster ride.”
Indeed, former 140-pound title challenger Zepeda (34-2, 26 KOs) answered by dropping Baranchyk in the second, third and fourth rounds.
A thunderous Baranchyk punch sent Zepeda down again in the final minute of the fifth, backing him to the ropes. This was no time to back off, Baranchyk reasoned.
“I didn’t care about anything other than winning. I’m a warrior,” Baranchyk said.
But going for the kill opened him to Zepeda’s vicious punch, and McWater, who was ringside at the 2019 deaths of Patrick Day and Maxim Dadashev, looked up in alarm to see his fighter posed perilously in a position not meant for 27-year-olds.
“Of course, I have concerns about the kid, because I love him,” McWater said. “There’d be nothing worse than a kid that special being injured forever.”
Baranchyk recalls undergoing a battery of tests at the hospital, then sleeping soundly all night, awaking to be told that beyond the cuts above his eyes, there was no brain damage detected, and that he was free to leave the next morning in the company of Holden.
The pair were driven to a local café, and Baranchyk ordered two bowls of ice cream: one chocolate, one vanilla.
“I very, very much like chocolate ice cream,” Baranchyk said.
Enjoying one of life’s simpler pleasures in that moment might have been the cause to prompt Baranchyk to reflect on the events of the past 12 hours.
The importance of health, the joy of living, the love of his wife.
“Ivan is not an emotional person, so he doesn’t think anything special like that,” Bahdanovich said, chuckling, to which Baranchyk confirmed, “I was just eating my ice cream.”
Nevertheless, upon his return home to Miami, there was the emotional scene of Bahdanovich embracing her husband at the airport. She was so thankful that the pair, who first met 10 years ago at a national sports camp in Belarus (she was a wrestler), were now back in each other’s arms.
“I took him for another bowl of ice cream,” she said.
The Nevada Athletic Commission suspended Baranchyk six months because of the seriousness of the knockout. Dedicated to daily conditioning, he returned to sparring in April and then DiBella, Holden and McWater plotted his next move.
“If I told him not to fight anymore, he’d fire me and go to someone else,” McWater said. “He’s so irrepressible, there’s nothing that was going to stop him from fighting.”
Indeed, Baranchyk claimed the IBF 140-pound title in October 2018, stopping his opponent after seven rounds. He then became the youngest participant in the World Boxing Super Series 140-pound tournament, and following some arduous travel to Scotland, lost to now-undisputed champion Josh Taylor by unanimous decision.
Losing the mandatory challenger position to Zepeda hasn’t dampened Baranchyk’s passion to reclaim a belt, but moving forward from that rugged defeat required shrewd planning by the respected boxing minds directing his career.
“I was more attentive than I’ve ever been,” DiBella said. “As fight guys, we know something like that with Zepeda takes a lot out of you. It wasn’t about getting Ivan a confidence builder. He was just in World War III. Any fight that we could get him after that poses a risk. We had to sit there and really analyze the opportunity and the cost-benefit analysis. Ivan fights like Ivan, and that’s just how he is.”
Ivan Baranchyk will compete on the undercard of Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley on Sunday. (Mikey Williams/Top Rank via Getty Images)
An opening emerged last month as he was added to the undercard of Sunday’s Showtime pay-per-view headlined by YouTube star Jake Paul versus former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in Cleveland.
“Montana can beat him. We know that. And there were others who could’ve been easier to beat,” McWater said. “But we felt like Montana can’t hurt him. He’s a slick boxer, not a big puncher.
“Ivan’s at a level where even tune-ups are good fighters. Once you’re a world champion, you don’t get freebies anymore. We couldn’t stamp our feet and say, ‘Give us a bum!’ He’s at too high of a level for that now. He wants to fight the best and he feels he’s perfectly fine.”
McWater has heard expert analysts like ESPN’s former two-division champion Timothy Bradley Jr. express concerns about Baranchyk returning to fight.
“Ivan doesn’t believe that at all, and at some point, you have to honor his beliefs, too,” McWater said. “We’ll see. As long as he gets through this fight in good spirits – Montana Love is a very good fighter – then we feel we can get him back on the map, closer to a world title.”
DiBella said he and McWater ensured Baranchyk underwent visits with some leading neurologists, who examined the post-fight exams from Las Vegas and put him through their own scans and diagnostic scrutiny before clearing him to fight again.
Asked if he can truly alter his instinctive attacking fighting style, Baranchyk said, “I’m still a warrior, but I’ve changed my mentality a little, improving my conditioning, and I hope you will see those technical improvements. I’ve (tended) to my defense. I’ll try not to be crazy during these fights. I want to be smart.”
That triggered his wife to respond, “Smart and crazy at the same time? Ummm … I hope so,” to which Baranchyk replied, “I’ll try, I promise.”
“I’m worrying for sure,” Bahdanovich said. “I’ll need some time to get back to the (lesser anxiety) I felt before the last fight. It’s just hard for me to know Ivan is going back in the ring.”
Baranchyk has fallen to No. 9 in the WBC 140-pound rankings, but the savvy McWater and DiBella assess that delivering a first defeat to Love on this high-profile platform will boost him.
Baranchyk expressed confidence his relentless style will wear down Love and overwhelm the local fighter’s effort to win on points.
Should he prevail, maybe then the handlers would move him toward a fight against someone like former 140-pound champion Regis Prograis. Another scenario could play out if Taylor moves to welterweight after his December mandatory defense against Jack Catterall.
Zepeda-Baranchyk II?
“Boxing is an inherently dangerous business. When you see a fighter viciously knocked out, it makes you wonder about the sport … so what you need to do is due diligence,” DiBella said. “He wasn’t rushed back. And he’s being paid well. The kid still wants to become a champion. He believes he’s in that rarefied air.”
Baranchyk knows it’s on him to calm the nerves of all those who recall the haunting vision of when he was last inside the ring.
“When they see me fight, my hope is they won’t have as many worries about my health,” he said. “I’m appreciative for what my promoters and manager have done. They always check on me. Now, this is my next step back and I can tell you: Everything will be well.”
(Top photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
Ivan Baranchyk ready to prove he's still 'a warrior' in first fight since slugfest with Jose Zepeda – The AthleticIvan Baranchyk ready to prove he’s still ‘a warrior’ in first fight since slugfest with Jose Zepeda
By Lance Pugmire Aug 26, 20211
As the wife of a professional boxer, Yuliya Bahdanovich is used to people asking her, “Do you fear the worst?”
One October night last year, sitting home alone in Miami while her husband, the former 140-pound world champion Ivan Baranchyk of Russia, fought Southern California’s Jose Zepeda in the 2020 fight of the year, Bahdanovich endured just that.
Capping the memorable, nationally televised bout that featured eight knockdowns, Zepeda landed a crushing left hand in the fifth round that sent Baranchyk crumbling downward for good, his right leg bent under him.
For several harrowing minutes, Baranchyk was shown lying backward on the canvas, a large blood spot on the side of his head, his eyes closed.
“Being alone made it so much worse,” Bahdanovich said. “I sat there thinking how scary boxing can be, about everything that can happen … it’s hard to even talk about it now. All I wanted was to hear Ivan’s voice on the phone … and I waited so long.”
Emergency personnel in Las Vegas gathered near Baranchyk that night, a doctor advising them to pause immediate treatment inside the ring so he could progress beyond the encouraging signs of breathing on his own, and then opening his eyes.
“I was disappointed, knowing I had lost all control,” said Baranchyk, who faces Montana Love (15-0-1, 7 KOs) on Sunday. “But I was lying there knowing I was fine, understanding everything that was being said to me. I didn’t care about anything else other than I was alive.”
Quickly after that realization, Baranchyk’s thoughts flashed to his wife. As he was being wheeled from the ring toward an ambulance, away from his cell phone in the locker room, he searched his un-clouding mind for the most important detail to him at the moment: his wife’s phone number.
He recalled it and asked his nearby co-promoter Tony Holden to call it.
“Everything’s good. I’m OK,” Baranchyk told Bahdanovich. “I know you’re worried, but I lost my phone, and I’m sorry it took so long. I’ve been worrying that you’re worried.”
The fretting over the resumption of Baranchyk’s career has continued ever since – from his wife, his two promoters, his manager and anyone else who witnessed the brutality he endured in the bout with Zepeda that Baranchyk promoter Lou DiBella calls “the fight of the century.”
Jose Zepeda left victorious after a back-and-forth battle with Ivan Baranchyk. (Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
In the WBC title eliminator, Baranchyk (20-2, 13 KOs) showed early why his nickname is “The Beast” by dropping Zepeda three times by the end of the second round.
“Ivan should’ve won that fight by just slowing down, allowing himself to win on points, but that’s something he was clearly not willing to do,” Baranchyk manager David McWater said. “Ivan’s an animal. He wanted to finish him, and you saw what happened – that crazy roller coaster ride.”
Indeed, former 140-pound title challenger Zepeda (34-2, 26 KOs) answered by dropping Baranchyk in the second, third and fourth rounds.
A thunderous Baranchyk punch sent Zepeda down again in the final minute of the fifth, backing him to the ropes. This was no time to back off, Baranchyk reasoned.
“I didn’t care about anything other than winning. I’m a warrior,” Baranchyk said.
But going for the kill opened him to Zepeda’s vicious punch, and McWater, who was ringside at the 2019 deaths of Patrick Day and Maxim Dadashev, looked up in alarm to see his fighter posed perilously in a position not meant for 27-year-olds.
“Of course, I have concerns about the kid, because I love him,” McWater said. “There’d be nothing worse than a kid that special being injured forever.”
Baranchyk recalls undergoing a battery of tests at the hospital, then sleeping soundly all night, awaking to be told that beyond the cuts above his eyes, there was no brain damage detected, and that he was free to leave the next morning in the company of Holden.
The pair were driven to a local café, and Baranchyk ordered two bowls of ice cream: one chocolate, one vanilla.
“I very, very much like chocolate ice cream,” Baranchyk said.
Enjoying one of life’s simpler pleasures in that moment might have been the cause to prompt Baranchyk to reflect on the events of the past 12 hours.
The importance of health, the joy of living, the love of his wife.
“Ivan is not an emotional person, so he doesn’t think anything special like that,” Bahdanovich said, chuckling, to which Baranchyk confirmed, “I was just eating my ice cream.”
Nevertheless, upon his return home to Miami, there was the emotional scene of Bahdanovich embracing her husband at the airport. She was so thankful that the pair, who first met 10 years ago at a national sports camp in Belarus (she was a wrestler), were now back in each other’s arms.
“I took him for another bowl of ice cream,” she said.
The Nevada Athletic Commission suspended Baranchyk six months because of the seriousness of the knockout. Dedicated to daily conditioning, he returned to sparring in April and then DiBella, Holden and McWater plotted his next move.
“If I told him not to fight anymore, he’d fire me and go to someone else,” McWater said. “He’s so irrepressible, there’s nothing that was going to stop him from fighting.”
Indeed, Baranchyk claimed the IBF 140-pound title in October 2018, stopping his opponent after seven rounds. He then became the youngest participant in the World Boxing Super Series 140-pound tournament, and following some arduous travel to Scotland, lost to now-undisputed champion Josh Taylor by unanimous decision.
Losing the mandatory challenger position to Zepeda hasn’t dampened Baranchyk’s passion to reclaim a belt, but moving forward from that rugged defeat required shrewd planning by the respected boxing minds directing his career.
“I was more attentive than I’ve ever been,” DiBella said. “As fight guys, we know something like that with Zepeda takes a lot out of you. It wasn’t about getting Ivan a confidence builder. He was just in World War III. Any fight that we could get him after that poses a risk. We had to sit there and really analyze the opportunity and the cost-benefit analysis. Ivan fights like Ivan, and that’s just how he is.”
Ivan Baranchyk will compete on the undercard of Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley on Sunday. (Mikey Williams/Top Rank via Getty Images)
An opening emerged last month as he was added to the undercard of Sunday’s Showtime pay-per-view headlined by YouTube star Jake Paul versus former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in Cleveland.
“Montana can beat him. We know that. And there were others who could’ve been easier to beat,” McWater said. “But we felt like Montana can’t hurt him. He’s a slick boxer, not a big puncher.
“Ivan’s at a level where even tune-ups are good fighters. Once you’re a world champion, you don’t get freebies anymore. We couldn’t stamp our feet and say, ‘Give us a bum!’ He’s at too high of a level for that now. He wants to fight the best and he feels he’s perfectly fine.”
McWater has heard expert analysts like ESPN’s former two-division champion Timothy Bradley Jr. express concerns about Baranchyk returning to fight.
“Ivan doesn’t believe that at all, and at some point, you have to honor his beliefs, too,” McWater said. “We’ll see. As long as he gets through this fight in good spirits – Montana Love is a very good fighter – then we feel we can get him back on the map, closer to a world title.”
DiBella said he and McWater ensured Baranchyk underwent visits with some leading neurologists, who examined the post-fight exams from Las Vegas and put him through their own scans and diagnostic scrutiny before clearing him to fight again.
Asked if he can truly alter his instinctive attacking fighting style, Baranchyk said, “I’m still a warrior, but I’ve changed my mentality a little, improving my conditioning, and I hope you will see those technical improvements. I’ve (tended) to my defense. I’ll try not to be crazy during these fights. I want to be smart.”
That triggered his wife to respond, “Smart and crazy at the same time? Ummm … I hope so,” to which Baranchyk replied, “I’ll try, I promise.”
“I’m worrying for sure,” Bahdanovich said. “I’ll need some time to get back to the (lesser anxiety) I felt before the last fight. It’s just hard for me to know Ivan is going back in the ring.”
Baranchyk has fallen to No. 9 in the WBC 140-pound rankings, but the savvy McWater and DiBella assess that delivering a first defeat to Love on this high-profile platform will boost him.
Baranchyk expressed confidence his relentless style will wear down Love and overwhelm the local fighter’s effort to win on points.
Should he prevail, maybe then the handlers would move him toward a fight against someone like former 140-pound champion Regis Prograis. Another scenario could play out if Taylor moves to welterweight after his December mandatory defense against Jack Catterall.
Zepeda-Baranchyk II?
“Boxing is an inherently dangerous business. When you see a fighter viciously knocked out, it makes you wonder about the sport … so what you need to do is due diligence,” DiBella said. “He wasn’t rushed back. And he’s being paid well. The kid still wants to become a champion. He believes he’s in that rarefied air.”
Baranchyk knows it’s on him to calm the nerves of all those who recall the haunting vision of when he was last inside the ring.
“When they see me fight, my hope is they won’t have as many worries about my health,” he said. “I’m appreciative for what my promoters and manager have done. They always check on me. Now, this is my next step back and I can tell you: Everything will be well.”
(Top photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
This is the fight I'm looking forward to the most...a dope fight for love and a step up against a very dangerous guy
I want this Fury upset ..for fukkery sake
Sheesh, Jake is much bigger than Ty, this fight may go ugly..for Ty Ty!
